Documentation systems in the health care field have seen increased demand due to the increasing liability in that industry. The need for documentation systems is especially acute in present day health care systems to insure that well-run institutions remain in business. This is especially true when considering the fact that larger and larger numbers of individuals are being processed by the health care systems. It is this increased number of patients that provides the increased demand for documentation.
One type of problem that occurs in the documentation procedure of present day health care institutions is that involved with the nurse/patient relationship. When a patient is entered into the hospital, it is necessary to quickly identify the patient's condition and flag this condition for the nursing staff especially when an acute episode or accident is involved that requires specific follow-up care. Typically, the nursing staff runs in shifts with each shift having to deal with a relatively large number of patients. To insure that there is a continuity between two shifts, it is important that each nurse entering a new shift has properly recorded all information concerning each of the patients. Typically, the only information that the nurse has on this patient is the chart. In order to adequately access a problem with the patient to determine what action to take and how often, the nurse must be able to quickly review the chart to determine the complete status of the patient and then make a determination as to what the problem is. Further, the nurse must document everything that has been done during this decision-making process. This can present a problem to any health care professional in that the appropriate medical terminology, etc., is not always fresh in their mind. This is especially true when handling a number of different anatomical systems such as the cardiovascular system, the genitourinary system, etc. To insure more complete documentation, it is desirable to provide a system whereby the health care professional can have ready access to the specific procedures that must be performed under any situation and clearly and succinctly document these procedures with the appropriate medical terminology.